Rigor in Mortis
by crowhill
Summary: Sherlock was dead, dead and buried in the cemetery beneath a cold stone grave. When at last he crawled out again, earth caked in his eye sockets and beneath his fingernails, he found himself alone. Sherlock didn't need to know how it had happened, didn't honestly care. He was present, and he was stuck, and that was all right as long as John stayed stuck, too.
1. Boundaries

Nothing ended in death, of course. Death disturbed the living (although Sherlock was never entirely certain as to why), but it didn't stop them in their tracks-they continued on with their lives, shaken, but not for long. Not irreparably. Even less damage was wrought upon the dead themselves, who were never again subjected to the utterly exhausting demands and expectations of those who lived on. In that respect, death suited Sherlock.

John took flowers to Sherlock's grave, once-potted lilies, still growing-but before he stepped away from the grave he had whispered "Christ," and had picked the pot up again, leaving the cemetery with it tucked under his arm.

A shame. It was a trite gesture, certainly, but Sherlock liked to see John like that, caring. His visits had become less frequent, but they were still steady, one at the middle of the month and one at the end, as well as at least a brief appearance on most holidays. Molly would bite her lip each time Sherlock left the tiny flat, never ceasing to be anxious-but she was there in the evening, there to offer the comfort Sherlock never liked to admit he needed after having seen John in the cemetery.

It had been a John day, just as nearly every day for the past four months had been. Sherlock had left the flat in the early hours of the morning, stepping softly past Molly's open bedroom door and out onto the streets, and bundling himself in sweaters and scarves (not his old get up, no, but less conspicuous and markedly warmer-and Sherlock found himself craving warmth). He had taken a cab to the cemetery, an unusual indulgence for him, and had sat waiting on the outskirts of the yard until John had arrived, earlier than anticipated, when the rising sun was just beginning to paint the sky pale golden and blue. The birds were just beginning to sing in earnest, and John sank to the ground, sitting and listening and occasionally speaking.

_"Mrs. Hudson worries...flat so empty...the blog, I can't...I'm sorry...getting used to this...don't want to..."_

John was stiffer than he had been at the beginning. He spoke to Sherlock's grave as if they were lovers who hadn't seen each other in far too long-familiar and affectionate, but stilted, not sure where to begin. Hidden, Sherlock drank in John's voice, devouring his appearance, the determined squaring of his shoulders and the complex emotions running across his face.

After a time he stood, brushing imagined soil from his trousers, and turned, leaving the cemetery lifeless once again. Sherlock lay on his back on the grass, his eyes closed, replaying each motion of John's hand and each tremble of his voice, tucking every detail tenderly away to tide him over until the next visit. By the time he stood to leave, the sun was high in the sky, and the morning glories planted by a nearby grave had already begun to close.

When he returned to the flat Molly was home, pulling groceries from a paper bag and putting them away, her hair tied back in a low ponytail.

"Was it bad, today?" she asked as Sherlock walked through the door, a carton of milk in her hand.

He didn't respond, but sat down at the short pine counter, watching her move about the kitchen, examining her-remembering the shock on her face when he first knocked on her door, soil still caked into his eye sockets and beneath his fingernails, pale, hollow. She had recovered tremendously in the following months. It was good to remember, the extent of what humans were capable of growing used to.

Molly took his silence as confirmation, and sighed sympathetically. "I saw him on the tube yesterday. Wasn't looking his best. I supposed it must be about time for another visit-not a good one, either. He misses you."

Of course he did. John needed him. Always had-Sherlock was certain of it. Just as John conducted light for Sherlock, Sherlock had become a conductor of sorts for John, had helped him see the danger and the excitement and everything that gave life its texture. Why wouldn't John miss that?

"I was thinking," Molly was saying, putting tucking jars of sauce into the pantry, "would you like to be embalmed? Don't laugh, it's only that you haven't been smelling all that nice lately, and even though God knows it's a miracle you've held up this well, maybe we could do something to keep you just a bit more fresh."

"Doubt it works like that," Sherlock said, breaking his silence-although, of course there was never any real way to guess how any of this worked. "I haven't been rotting. If this was just a body, It would be in far worse condition. I've been considering this-this form is a manner of transport, but not in the same way that it was. An imprint, rather than a duplicate. A watermark. Residual."

"Right," Molly said, frowning. "So..."

"So it's not a decaying corpse." He avoided identifying the from he now inhabited as _him. _It looked like him, certainly, just as solid and thin and present as he had ever been, but it was different somehow, obscene, a body designed only for shadows. "Not a corpse at all, really. Something else, different. New. I'll wash, get the smell of death off me, that should take care of it."

Molly nodded, grateful. She wasn't squeamish, which Sherlock appreciated-days spent in the company of the dead had stripped her of most natural disgust-but she was still a product of the living world, and never had enjoyed coming home to one more reminder of human mortality. She had crossed herself frantically when Sherlock had first arrived on her doorstep, a gesture which had made him roll his eyes, almost laugh. Later, as they sat on her bathroom floor and together scrubbed the blood and dirt from Sherlock's teeth and hair, he had reminded her that she wasn't religious. "No," she had said, smiling sheepishly. "Mum was. Old habits, you know."

That was how it had been. Nothing ended in death, but everything was revealed, remembered. Habits and superstitions long since buried, dismissed stories that Sherlock thought he had long since deleted climbing to the front of his mind.

"I got some more books today," Molly was saying. "I know you think it's pointless, but I want to understand as best I can. At least try to." She shook her head, bewildered, folding the paper bag and slipping it neatly beneath the sink.

Sherlock tightened his mouth. It _was _pointless, but Molly had attacked the research feverishly, consuming every piece of information she could find, no matter how unhelpful or unlikely. Sherlock didn't need to know how it had happened, didn't honestly care. He was present, and he was stuck, and that was all right as long as John stayed stuck, too-as long as they were frozen in time together, he could contend with anything. But John was a product of the living world as well, and the slightest push might cause him to roll away from Sherlock, move forward without him, into a world where things were warm and close and easy and-no. The thought was unacceptable. For the time, he was immovable, and John was too. That was all he needed to know.

"Whatever pleases you," he said, voice cold as Molly sat down on the chair beside him, picking up the newspaper and unfolding it between them. There was comfort in creating boundaries, no matter how insubstantial-even now, with the weight of death hanging between them like a great curtain, dark and pervasive, kind in its solidity.


	2. Things Remembered

He could remember fighting. They had fought at times, when their differences became painfully apparent and the gap between them seemed to stretch out for miles-huge, rolling disputes like thunder, and small lingering arguments that yipped and nipped at the ankles like a tiny, vicious dog.

What had they fought about? Little things. Unimportant things. Large things. Things that mattered. Whether the milk could be drunk five days past the sell by date. How the towels should be folded. Who they were. How they should be when they were together.

They had fought about sex, about what it meant and how it should be done. Those were the arguments that Sherlock could remember most vividly, now, months since the last time he had been touched that gently and with such great intention. But he had hurt John-he knew that now. Sherlock had never needed what John needed, and the discrepancy had stung on both sides.

"I didn't think it was so important," Sherlock could remember himself saying.

John had been angry that day, trying to hold it back, failing. They had had sex in the morning, and Sherlock had leaned into it, enjoyed it, even-but there was a gap, as there always was, between what he was experiencing and what John was experiencing, and that time the distance between them was so clear it was almost tangible.

"Of course it's important-maybe not to you, but to me, it's important. It's a part of everything, for me, don't you see? It's a way of being closer, of really being in the same place at the same time-it means something. It means a lot."

Sherlock had stared. "You don't think I care for you the same way you do for me," he had said, slowly, incredulous.

John had taken a deep breath, steadying himself. "No," he had said, "No, it's not that. God knows I'd kick your teeth in if you ever tried to suggest I didn't understand my own feelings-I won't do that to you. No. It's just that-Christ. Even when we're at our best, we have these disconnects, and I'm not always sure if just-just caring about each other is good enough. We have to be able to give each other what we need, as well. You need distance, I get that, but I need proximity. I need to be able to show you how I feel, to bring it outside of myself and share it with you. And having sex together, that's the whole point, the whole purpose. It's not just the sex-it's the _together."_

"You could just tell me, you know," Sherlock had said. "If you're feeling for me, and you want to share it. There are other ways of sharing. I would believe you." He ached for the closeness too, couldn't John see? He longed for it, breathed it in when it arrived. The sex was good, pleasant, sometimes wild and fantastic, but as far as Sherlock was concerned, it was no place for the quiet, red-ripe tenderness that overtook him when John listened to him playing violin, or knotted his hands into Sherlock's hair, or lay against him in bed, quiet and warm, or smiled at Sherlock across a room full of people, generating a path of pure light between them.

But John had sunk to his knees, searching Sherlock's face, still needing to fix things, to force the two of them into an impossible accord. "I know you would," he had said. "I know that for you, that'd be enough-that talking and living together could be entirely satisfying, could mean to you what sharing a bed does for me. But I'm always going to want that. There's always going to be a part of me that wishes we were close in that particular way-not just that we're having sex, but that it's resonating for both of us. Don't roll your eyes, I mean this. I want more and I can't get more and I don't even really want the specifics of 'more' if I know that you're not one hundred percent on board."

The problem had been painfully bewildering, near impossible to comprehend. "You could just satisfy yourself, if it becomes too problematic to do so together."

John had laughed at that, sad, bitter. "God. You're still missing the point. It's not just me wanting to get off-that'd be easy. It's me wanting _you, _wanting to be close to _you._ It's specific. Not exclusively physical, either. I want this because I want to feel us moving in time. Everything in the world that can be shared between two people, I want for us. To give you happiness in a way no one else does, a secret way. That's what I want."

The flat went silent after John had finished speaking.

"I don't think I could want it," Sherlock had said at last. _You do give me happiness in a secret way, oh, John, you do, each time you touch me or make gentle fun of me, each day in which you come home to me, every moment in which you are unexpectedly strong, unexpectedly daring-can't you see, it's so clear, it's right in front of you._ "Not in that way."

John had closed his eyes, nodded, stood up. "I know," he had answered, turning toward the door. "I know."

(On Molly's couch, Sherlock kept his eyes tightly shut, hands on the lids to block out all sources of light, turning the old problem over in his mind. What had been so wrong with wanting to please John, why hadn't that been enough? It was never a sacrifice-he enjoyed himself, liked John's body on his own, liked the strange smells and rough skin and soft stomachs. He had come for John, time and time again, and it was good, wasn't it? It always felt good. But the act in itself indicated nothing, and John's desire to make it something more sacred than the thrust and rhythm of naked bodies had always seemed laughable. And so he had hurt John. Again and again. Perpetual injury. Never enough. Could he have been better? No, no-that was the manner of thinking that had done John injury to begin with, the desire to change himself, trying to fake the significance of something inherently insignificant. What John had craved had been something earnest, genuine emotion in the most expected places. Sherlock hadn't dealt well with the genuine, not unless it was unexpected, understated-not in bed.)

The next time they had sex was different, both faster and slower. John's tongue against Sherlock's frenulum, gasps, kisses sticky with cum, one long scratch up John's back, fingers easing into Sherlock's body, lubricant somehow managing to smear across his chin. John hadn't tried to hold Sherlock's gaze, hadn't tried to make the sex anything else, but the change saddened him, and he had turned away when they were finished, making an invisible wall around himself, cutting himself away. He needed closeness, didn't think it was likely to be given. The action only made Sherlock long to give it, and so he had eased in closer, draping his arm over John's side, putting his face into his neck, his other arm above his head, scratching gently at John's hair.

"I do love you," he had murmured against John's skin. Rare. Precious. At once John had responded, turning round so they were face to face, pulling Sherlock into an awkward half hug, their bodies flush. Relaxed. That was what he had needed-that was good, then. Maybe there was hope for them. Maybe they only needed the extra time to learn one another's hearts and bodies, little by little, inch by inch, until finally they could carefully tend to one another's cracks, paint over the blips and bruises where so much casual wrong had been done. Sherlock had wanted to mend John's cracks. The scars, and grief. It wouldn't have been a bad way to spend his days, he thought, keeping John vibrant and awake and always glad. Maybe he could do it. Maybe they could do it together.

That's how they had slept that night, close, grateful, desperate, halfway-sad, sinking into the depths of a _maybe_ that never reached it's conclusion.

Maybe it would someday, Sherlock thought, hoped, madly wished. When everything was sorted. Maybe there was still time.

Maybe.


End file.
